Open Your Eyes

Victor Ruiz Diaz

Dr. Ellis

EN 101-16

19 September 2013

Open Your Eyes

                In the short stories “The Birthmark” by Nathaniel Hawthorne, “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the poem “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” by William Wordsworth, and the event hosted by Odds Bodkin focuses on the beauty and lack of freedom. For instance, “The Birthmark” portrays how a husband sees a little imperfection on her wife’s cheek trapping him in a desire to make her perfect; meanwhile in “The Yellow Wallpaper” describes how a woman is recovering from a treatment and her feeling of being trap in the house. Wordsworth’s poem show us how the beauty of something simple highlighted a moment of his life, and in the other hand Mr. Bodkin told us the story of old civilizations that were on conflict because of the beauty of a princess. All these readings empathizes how people only focuses on the main solutions for problems, rather than looking for a solution at a different perspective.

                Hawthorne’s story shows us how Aylner failed to see the natural beauty of his wife Georgina who had a tinny birthmark on her left cheek. His desire to eliminate his wife little imperfection does not let him see the truly uniqueness of Georgina, it does not let him realize that true love does not require a perfect face. This story links in a certain way with the event because talked about a book in which a leader starts a war because he desires the most beautiful princess of the kingdom, and his actions to achieve his goal do not make him realize that he is doing a great damage to his people by starting a war. That happens to Aylner also because by trying with any means necessary to eliminate that birthmark he ends up killing the only person who loved him as he truly was.

                Gilman’s story portrays how a woman moves with his family into a house where she could rehabilitated from an illness she suffered. Right from the beginning the woman felt that the atmosphere of the house was not adequate for her, but her husband believed that she just needed to give it some time in order to familiarize with the house. The husband refused to see the concern that his wife had because she was going through a healing process and because he is a doctor and he knows the best for her. Connecting with the event again we could see how the leader refuses to send back the princess in order to stop the war, he does not see the damage that he will cause to his people because he is blind folded with his desire to have the princess next to him. In “The Yellow Wallpaper” we could see that the constant neglecting towards the women bad felling about the house end up making her unstable psychologically, because the husband refused to see the solution of the problem.

                 Finally in Wordsworth poem we see how something simple and beautiful could make the difference between happiness and sadness for a person. Wordsworth describes in his poem how those flowers made him realize that you could also find beauty in places where you least expected to find, and those things would please you every time you remember them.  Mr. Bodkin described in his book also that the people pleased the Gods by doing small things that turned out to be very helpful for the entire community. Summarizing it we could see beauty anywhere, it is only up to us to see them or deny them.

                All these readings and the event taught me to not blindfold me seeking for beauty instead of taking advantage of what I have in my hands at the moment. To no trap me in the concept of only trying to solve a problem with the most obvious solutions, try to look at them in a different perspective at some points of the process of solving them, and to always listen the others opinions in order to have a better understanding of the situation.